Spring, Jokes, and Hiking

This spring has been so interesting. A month ago, we had a blizzard that dumped about eighteen inches of snow on us. For the past two weeks we’ve been hitting into the eighties Fahrenheit frequently. When I raked the leaves off my tulip garden two weeks ago, I found frozen spots and the first signs of the tulips coming up. Within a week, I had buds on most ever tulip that came up. Within a couple days after that, they were all open. It’s amazing to see how fast everything has changed in just a couple weeks. And, in another couple weeks, my tulips will be all done blossoming and will have died back. We’ll be well on our way into summer by then. Watching all of this is a good reminder for me about how much of a miracle it is.
My son has been learning how to tell jokes lately. It took him a little bit to figure out how to deliver the punchline well. Now that he’s got the basics of the delivery down, he’s been walking around telling all sorts of jokes with varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, being five years old means his memory for jokes is still rather limited. So, I’ve been hearing the same four or five kindergarten jokes over and over and over. Ad nauseum. Out of self defense we’ve been working on teaching my son more jokes. Bonus, I’m getting good at kindergarten jokes myself.
My family loves to go hiking. I grew up hiking. When we had my son, he started hiking with us as soon as he got big enough to sit in the backpack carrier. He’s big enough now we can’t easily put him in his stroller or carry him anymore. So, he has to hike with us, which he likes to do most days. Last week we got him his first pair of hiking boots. The child went the entire rest of the day refusing to take them off. He even wore them out of the store. The next day we took him on his first hike. Surprisingly, he didn’t mind getting them a little dirty. I thought he’d get upset at that. My parents took him hiking a second time this weekend in them and he again did well. And he’s so proud of them. It’s pretty cute.